Fees & Jobs

Every summer, the desperation for school fees and for jobs becomes more intense in our communities. For parents, for students and for those thousands of young people entering our shrinking job market, this UDP administration is a wretched failure.

This year’s Ministry of Education budget is $190 million. With all these many millions at the disposal of their government, thousands of mothers are still scrambling to meet harsh deadlines imposed by school managements to pay tuition fees, to purchase school books and to satisfy various other activity costs. Despite the frequent grandstanding of the Minister of Education, the fact is that many students are being denied their place in the classroom because they cannot afford that seat. The scramble for fees is a bonanza for the pawn shops and loans sharks. For families, especially the 43% of our citizens who are poor and whose Constitution supposedly guarantees “educational on the basis of equality,” the scramble is a dehumanizing and debilitating ritual.

For those young men and women graduating from high schools, from sixth forms and from UB, their prospects for securing a job is dismal. 25% of our young people are already unable to find jobs, according to the last unemployment report. Adding another five thousand job seekers (the estimated number of graduates that will be looking for jobs after this summer) to this depressed market will raise that already alarming jobless rate and drive down wages.

The screams for fees and for jobs are met with a frightening silence from this administration. Barrow and company have absolutely no solutions to offer.

What is more frightening is that Barrow and company have offered no rebuttal to the statement issued by the IMF after their recent visit to Belize. Just two months into a national budget built upon the largest tax increased in Belizean history – $110 million in new taxes – the IMF is apparently calling for public servants’ jobs to be cut, for pensions to be reduced and for yet more tax increases. If a full quarter of our young people are already unemployed, and if this figure will balloon now that an estimated five thousand graduates have entered the job hunt, can we even begin to imagine the havoc that retrenchment and higher taxes will have on our communities?

Because the link between poverty and conflict is so firmly established, the scream for fees and for jobs goes to the heart of our crime problem. The truant and the jobless are far more likely to commit crimes. In their work published in 2008, the economists Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel cited multiple studies showing that economic security is the greatest contributor to the security of persons/property. “The calculus of survival can turn anyone into an economic gangster,” they wrote. Fees and jobs are a matter of survival for so many of our people.

What is needed is for the Ministry of Education to guarantee a space in the classroom for all students, from kinder garden to sixth form. $190 million in education expenditure is roughly $3,000 per student yearly. Guaranteed access must be achievable with this level of spending. What is needed is a well managed jobs program that will put our young people to work, in private sector generated jobs and if necessary, in government sponsored enterprises. Barrow and the UDP were elected to provide fees and jobs. Belizeans must hold them to their pledge.

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